Contributing beyond Code: My 6 months review
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00:00
Open sourceMachine codeOpen sourceFront and back endsComputer programmingComputer animation
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Chaos (cosmogony)Local GroupPattern recognitionOpen sourceMachine codeEmailMachine codePoint (geometry)SoftwareTwitterMereologySystem callRight angleOnline helpOpen sourceProjective planeCoefficient of determinationOpen setService (economics)Polygon meshComputer programmingEmailSpeech synthesisEvent horizonWritingPattern recognitionChaos (cosmogony)Inclusion mapSelf-organizationProcess (computing)Data storage deviceOrder (biology)View (database)Level (video gaming)Core dumpMultiplication signPlastikkarteQueue (abstract data type)Roundness (object)Line (geometry)SkewnessComputer animation
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:07
Hi, everyone. Welcome to For STEM 2021. I'm going to be giving a lightning talk on contributing beyond code, and it's going to be like my six months or rather eight months review so far with contributing to open source.
00:27
Okay, I'm Ruth Ikega, and I'm from Nigeria, and I'm a back end developer. I'm also a technical writer, and I'm part of the GitHub stars program as a GitHub star.
00:41
So let's go into my journey. Let's take a dive into my journey so far with contributing to open source. So yeah, so this is a screenshot. I'm not sure it's so visible, but these are like a screenshot of a first tweet. I made a tweet about the first contribution I made to open source.
01:04
It was with the first contributions on GitHub, the repository where you just add in your name to the contributors list. So after the contribution, I made a tweet about it. I gained over like 202 likes and so many people congratulating me just for like putting in my name on the contributors list.
01:26
And this was like the start of my journey. So wuska here means women of open source Africa, community Africa. So this is an initiative from the open source community here in Africa, and an NGO called the Chicago Africa community where the idea of this initiative
01:48
was actually to support women into contributing to open source, women in Africa into contributing to open source, and this was like the start of the initiative that was in June.
02:02
So there was this challenge somehow similar to hacktoba first, where you in the month of July to get some pull request and at the end of the month, the person with the highest number of pull requests gets a domain name for free. So I participated in this challenge as the start like the start of my open source journey. And when I participated in this challenge,
02:25
I think I was the highest. I was one of the highest number of pull requests, and it was like the start of something beautiful for me in the open source space, and just adding in chipping in I was like three months into like coding, and
02:40
I was still a beginner at that point. So they were like, they were like so many challenges for me starting ball. So far, I counted how much open source has actually helped me, helped my technical skills, helped me personally. I would say it has been an amazing ride for me so I'll be sharing like a step by step, step by step how I contributed, and these organizations
03:09
that I found welcoming and I am currently part of. So, the first community I engaged in was the Nome community. So there's this project, the scalable onboarding project is headed
03:29
by Sri. So this project is actually like how to do scalable onboarding, how do we better onboarding in the Nome community. And that was like the first project, the first open source project, I looked at, and it was not, it was
03:46
not a code project right so it was just less common less discourse how onboarding has been in the Nome community. Let's gather data, let's gather metrics that will help better onboarding in the Nome community and so this project was really
04:01
really interesting at the start and like I said earlier, I was just like three months into coding and Nome uses GitLab. So, starting off, I knew GitHub, I knew how to use GitHub, I knew what GitHub was, but I had to learn another one which is GitLab right. So, initially contributing was a whole lot of stress like I had to I had so many Git problems that I think the first
04:29
pull request I made the Nome project was I think I fucked the repository like I cloned and fucked the repository like up to five times just like making one pull request because I kept deleting and, you know, adding and it was a whole lot of frustrating.
04:46
So that was like the first project I got involved in Nome. And over time, I am still part of some other projects like the extensions, rebooted initiative. Yeah, and I contribute to Nome, I think the
05:03
last, last year, GUADEC, I was part of like the volunteers in the GUADEC 2020 conference and it was really an amazing experience for me right. So, finding Nome and the people around the project I was contributing to like Sri, Samson, Regina, it was
05:23
really very awesome because I felt welcome. It was not, it was not, I wasn't contributing code at the point, but I still felt welcome and my ideas were heard and I improved the project in the way I could. So, next, next, I want to talk about the second community like I found which is the layer five community, the service merge community, and
05:51
it was really very welcoming to me and I think the first pull request I made to the layer five community was on the readme. So there was this change that was needed across the readmes on each repository so I was able to like change those, change those
06:08
typos and you know enhance the readme and the community so far has been welcoming, and I even got to join the onboarding program which we call the meshmates program where we help newcomers and new contributors to
06:23
get, get conversant with the layer five project, and all our, everything around the community. So, another project I really got involved with is the chaos project and I joined the diversity and inclusion working group.
06:41
And so far like I've done so much in a short while with the diversity and inclusion working group in particular, like, I remember last year we started defining a metric about burnout, which is something in open source communities people do not really like to talk about. And I've been able to like actively contribute to this, to the diversity and inclusion working group, and the metric is still
07:09
is still in process is still in review, and I hope soon you need to be out for others like check it out and talk about like burnout in their communities. So, secondly, there's the project in the chaos space, that's called the badging projects like DNI, the diversity and inclusion
07:30
badging project. And basically what that project is about is, for starters we start with conferences, giving diversity and inclusion badges
07:41
to conferences that are diverse and inclusive and it's something you really should check out. And I'm sure that you'd be, you'd be, you'd be happy and you'd be impressed with what we've been doing at the badging project. So, so far contributing to open source and contributing beyond code. I have some code contributions do, but I
08:08
think like 80% of my contribution so far to open source has been all non code contributions right. And so far I have improved skills that I listed out here, one which is empathy. So, so far with contributing and
08:26
helping others, I have applied empathy, because sometimes when you hop into a project like a new project for newcomers, it's usually very frustrating, right, getting around the dogs getting around the code base. So, with my contributing to this open source organizations and
08:48
the project, I have been able to help all the newcomers, other contributors, get their way around the community get familiar with the community I have applied like empathy I have tried to be patient with helping out hand holding and the rest of them. I
09:07
have improved public speaking, I have tried to like speak advocate for new contributors I have I think so far I've like last year 2020 I spoke I like I think up to eight conferences.
09:24
They are about an event. So, so far I have gained public speaking skills. I have also improved writing in documentation because most of the projects I contribute soon. I have helped in improving the dogs in checking in giving reviews in looking at what can be changed
09:45
and what what should be changed. I have also improved the moderating. So with my volunteering at conferences I have I have shared and I have moderated like I think our last year with Alton's open conference I think I volunteered. Yeah,
10:01
I will tell with the open conference and I moderated a particular a particular room for like I think six hours straight. And so, over time, even in the layer five community service mesh community I contribute to there's, we also we always do a new commerce call every Thursday, and I'm part of the persons that moderate that call and so by it has been like it has been interesting
10:26
and I've got to improve my skills and most importantly people skills right so I have learned how to like manage people better how to how to talk how to be inclusive, especially how to how to include other people how to manage people how to care for
10:48
others. Right. So, these are just cues and I think many more that I have been proud. I have, I have gained so far down in contributing to open source and it's beyond the code.
11:04
Right. So, besides the fact that yes that code contributions are really really important. Yeah, but I'm contributing to open source is beyond code, and it's so much there's so much to do in the community there's so much to help around, there's a contributor
11:23
that is being frustrated somewhere on the code base about the code base that you can help with which is what I have been focusing on for like the past six to eight months. And the biggest recognition for me so far is being like the biggest recognition so far with contributing to open source was when I
11:46
joined the GitHub stars program and I found out that I was like the first female GitHub star in Africa and it's something, it's something that was really really dead to me because so far with my contributions they were, they were not just code but I helped the
12:03
community I helped the people around the community, I applied so much empathy and that's like, that's basically what got me to this point that I am in. So, for someone listening right now. I would say, open source for me is
12:23
not just about the code, it's about community. It's about helping others it's about improving people's lives through software. So, in your community, in your projects, try to appreciate those that are not contributing
12:44
code, try to make them feel welcome try to make them feel loved and appreciated. And I love to end this talk with this quote that says open source is not just about the code. And you can contact me on Twitter at Ikega Ruth via email or you can check out my GitHub handle, and thanks for listening to my talk.
13:08
I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you.